In the manufacture (erection and taping of flaps to produce a carton or case from a knocked down blank) the knocked down carton or case is first squared and then the bottom flaps folded into closed position and where a taping system is used the tape is applied to hold the folded bottom flaps in closed position. The squaring operation generally withdraws a singe knocked down case blank from a magazine of such blanks held in face to face position, opens the blank from the knocked down condition into a squared condition wherein adjacent side walls of the case are generally mutually perpendicular and positions the squared blank into a bottom flap folding station. In the bottom flap folding station the minor flaps (generally the shorter flaps) one connected to each of the leading and trailing side panels of the case oriented in the direction of travel of the case from the erecting station are folded relative to their respective side panels and then the major flaps one connected to each of the remaining side wall (walls parallel to the direction of travel) are folded into underlining relation (outwardly exposed relation) to the minor flaps. The so erected case is then moved into the taping station where a tape is applied along the bottom major flaps extending in the direction of travel of the case through the taping station to secure the major flaps in folded closed position and thereby the case in squared condition with the adjacent side panels mutually perpendicular. In this condition the top closing flaps are generally in open position so that the case may be filled and then the top flaps are closed and secured in closed position for example by taping similar to the bottom taping operation to complete the erecting filling and closing cycle and the filed box is ready for shipment.
In the taping station the case is held against the bottom taping head by some suitable hold down means which includes or may be provided primarily by the belt drive system the belts of which contact opposite major side walls of the case and move the case through the taping station where, the bottom tape is applied. It is known, as shown for example in U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,776 issued Oct. 3, 1995 to Ulrich et al., to use tilted rollers (rollers who's axis of rotation is sloped so that the circumference of the tilted roller generates a force on the case as the case is moved there past) to aid in holding the case against the bottom tape head
U.S. Pat. No. 5,553,954 issued Nov. 10, 1985 to Sewell et al. and the said U.S. Pat. No. 5,454,776 issued Oct. 3, 1995 to Ulrich et al. (the disclosures of these patents are incorporated herein by reference) provide examples of the types of machines described above and for which the present invention provides an improved and less expensive system than the systems currently employed and that have been in use for years in that a single drive provides the required driving forces to move the case from the bottom flap folding station and through the bottom taping station.
The current systems process all cases by moving them forward in the direction of travel by applying generally a uniform force to both sides to the case so that no correction is available should the blanks tend to fold along their fold lines in a manner to result in some case leaving the erector having some horizontal curving or warping making packing on pallets more difficult.